Abstract Unsteady flow over automotive side-view mirrors may cause flow-induced vibrations of the mirror assembly which can result in blurred rear-view images, adversely affecting marketability through customer comfort and quality perception. Prior research has identified two mechanisms by which aerodynamically induced vibrations are introduced in the mirror. The first mechanism is unsteady pressure loading on the mirror face due to the unsteady wake, causing direct vibration of the mirror glass. The second mechanism, and the focus of this study, is a fluctuating loading on the mirror housing caused by an unsteady separation zone on the outer portion of the housing. A time-dependent Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methodology was developed to correctly model mirror wake behavior, and thereby predict flow-induced mirror vibration to improve performance estimations.

Abstract A vehicle driving on the road experiences unsteady flow conditions which are not generally reproduced in the development environment. This paper investigates the potential importance of this difference to aeroacoustics and hence to occupant perception and proposes a methodology to enable better ranking of designs by taking account of wind noise modulation. Two approaches of reproducing the effects of unsteady wind on aeroacoustics were investigated: an active wind tunnel Turbulence Generation System (TGS) and a quasi-steady approach based on measurements at a series of fixed yaw angles. A number of tools were used to investigate the onset flow and its impacts, including roof-mounted probe, acoustic heads and surface microphones. External noise measurements help to reveal the response of separate exterior noise sources to yaw.

Abstract An increasing demand for vehicle noise control has been proposed and at the same time, vehicle weight and fuel economy have become critical for the automotive industry. The methodology of statistical energy analysis (SEA) is used to balance both light weight and high noise insulation performance. In this paper, the vehicle dash and floor sound package systems, which are two of the major paths for vehicle interior noise, are studied and optimized by CAE and testing technology. Two types of sound packages which are the conventional insulation system and the lightweight one are chosen for the vehicle dash and floor system. The vehicle dash and floor systems are modeled by SEA and the transmission loss (TL) of the dash and floor system is analyzed, respectively. Several influence factors of the TL are also analyzed, such as sound package coverage, the leaks, etc.

Abstract Bluetooth communication systems are constrained to use a low cost filtering technology, which requires designers to implement inexpensive noise reduction techniques. Improving Bluetooth sound and audio quality has been a topic of research over the years. Sound and audio quality in vehicles are areas that still require improvements in order to achieve better customer experience when using Bluetooth communication systems. This paper proposes a low cost, simple, and effective method to reduce noise in Bluetooth systems using Kalman Filtering. Our novel method is proposed to be used in vehicular Bluetooth applications. We have created a MATLAB/SIMULINK model to validate the proposed method. Results have demonstrated significant noise reduction and improvement to the processed speech signals.

Abstract A new motor has been developed that combines the goals of greater compactness, increased power and a quiet drive. This motor is an interior permanent magnet synchronous motor (IPM motor) that combines an interior permanent magnet rotor and a stator with concentrated windings. In addition, development of the motor focused on the slot combination, the shape of the magnetic circuits and the control method all designed to reduce motor noise and vibration. An 8-pole rotor, 12-slot stator combination was employed, and a gradually enlarged air gap configuration was used in the magnetic circuits. The gradually enlarged air gap brings the centers of the rotor and the stator out of alignment, changing the curvature, and continually changing the amount of air gap as the rotor rotates. The use of the gradually enlarged air gap brings torque degradation to a minimum, and significantly reduces torque fluctuation and iron loss of rotor and stator.

Abstract Noise is one of the key nuisances from which the car is the source. One of those noise sources, the air induction line of the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), can use some noise attenuation systems as damping isolated volumes (called resonators), or porous ducts, before the air filter. Those solutions can attenuate designated frequencies or range of frequencies. The issue is that those solutions can be bulky, especially for resonators, expensive or even generate some drawbacks on performances. Elements like hot air ingestion, pressure drops or even generation of new noises are some significant areas where performances can be deteriorated through the implementation of such acoustic device on the air induction line. It has then invented and developed a brand new type of acoustic device, designed to ensure optimal performances for a very low packaging. This solution preserves performances and cost, and tend to cope with most of the drawbacks of usual technologies.

The Multi Material Lightweight Vehicle (MMLV) developed by Magna International and Ford Motor Company is a result of a US Department of Energy project DE-EE0005574. The project demonstrates the lightweighting potential of a five passenger sedan, while maintaining vehicle performance and occupant safety. Prototype vehicles were manufactured and limited full vehicle testing was conducted. The Mach-1 vehicle design, comprised of commercially available materials and production processes, achieved a 364 kg (23.5%) full vehicle mass reduction, enabling the application of a 1-liter 3-cylinder engine resulting in a significant environmental benefit and fuel reduction. This paper includes details associated with the noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) sound package design and testing. Lightweight design actions on radiating panels enclosing the vehicle cabin typically cause vehicle interior acoustic degradation due to the reduction of panel surface mass.

Abstract Instances have occurred where the outer surface of turbocharger fully floating journal bearing bushings have exhibited damage from oil debris resulting in constant tone noise and subsequent warranty claims. This paper studies the effect of oil debris in Turbocharger journal bearings on Subsynchronous NVH. A CFD model is built to study the behavior of oil debris particles with different sizes. It is found that the dominant centrifugal forces prevent larger particles from reaching the inner film while smaller particles travel more easily to the inner film. It is also found that the turbine side is more likely to become damaged from debris than the compressor side bearing due to higher temperatures. A tribology analysis shows that oil debris particles in the outer film will reduce the speed ratio, while oil debris particles in inner film will increase the speed ratio. The tribology analysis also predicts the effects of oil debris on bearing stiffness and damping.

Abstract Generation of discretization with prescribed element sizes are adapted to the geometry. From the rules of thumb, for a complicated geometry it is important to select the reasonable element order, shapes and size for accurate results. In order to that, this paper describes the influence of elemental algorithm of the catalytic converter mounting brackets. Brackets are main source of mounting of various systems mainly intake and exhaust in the engine. In hot end exhaust system, a bracket design plays a vital role because it has to withstand heavy structural vibrations without isolation combined with thermal loads. Bracket design and stiffness determines the whole catalytic converter system's rigidity. So, here discretization of converter brackets by linear and parabolic elements is studied with different elements types and compared.

Abstract Proportional integral derivative (PID) control technique is the most common control algorithm applied in various engineering applications. Also, particle swarm optimization (PSO) is extensively applied in various optimization problems. This paper introduces an investigation into the use of a PSO algorithm to tune the PID controller for a semi-active vehicle suspension system incorporating magnetorheological (MR) damper to improve the ride comfort and vehicle stability. The proposed suspension system consists of a system controller that determine the desired damping force using a PID controller tuned using PSO, and a continuous state damper controller that estimate the command voltage that is required to track the desired damping force. The PSO technique is applied to solve the nonlinear optimization problem to find the PID controller gains by identifying the optimal problem solution through cooperation and competition among the individuals of a swarm.

Abstract A turbocharger is currently widely used to boost performance of an internal combustion engine. Generally, a turbocharger consists of a compressor which typically is driven by an exhaust turbine. The compressor will influence how the low frequency engine pulsation propagates in the intake system. The compressor will also produce broad-band flow induced sound due to the turbulence flow and high frequency narrowband tonal sound which is associated with rotating blade pressures. In this paper, a practical simulation procedure based on a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach is developed to predict the flow induced sound of a turbocharger compressor. In the CFD model of turbocharger compressor, the unsteady, moving wheel, detached eddy simulation (DES) approach are utilized. In this manner, both the broad-band and narrow-band flow induced sound are directly resolved in the CFD computation.

Abstract When a vehicle is in motion, noise is generated in the cabin that is composed of noise in multiple narrow-frequency bands and caused by input from the road surface. This type of noise is termed low-frequency-band road noise, and its reduction is sought in order to increase occupant comfort. The research discussed in this paper used feedback control technology as the basis for the development of an active noise control technology able to simultaneously reduce noise in multiple narrow-frequency bands. Methods of connecting multiple single-frequency adaptive notch filters, a type of adaptive filter, were investigated. Based on the results, a method of connecting multiple filters that would mitigate mutual interference caused by different controller transmission characteristics was proposed.

Abstract Cabin quietness is one of the important factors for product marketability. In particular, the importance of reducing road noise is increasing in recent years. Methods that reduce acoustic sensitivity as well as those that reduce the force transferred from the suspension to the body (the suspension transfer force) are used as means of reducing road noise. Reduction of the compliance of the body suspension mounting points has been widely used as a method of reducing acoustic sensitivity. However, there were cases where even though this method reduced acoustic sensitivity, road noise did not decrease. This mechanism remained unclear. This study focused on the suspension transfer force and analyzed this mechanism of change using the transfer function synthesis method. The results showed that the balance between the body's suspension mounting points, suspension bush, and suspension arm-tip compliance is an important factor influencing the change in suspension transfer force.

Abstract Modelling of disc in brake squeal analysis is complicated because of the rotation of disc and the sliding contact between disc and pads. Many analytical or analytical numerical combined modeling methods have been developed considering the disc brake vibration and squeal as a moving load problem. Yet in the most common used complex eigenvalue analysis method, the moving load nature normally has been ignored. In this paper, a new modelling method for rotating disc from the point of view of modal is presented. First finite element model of stationary disc is built and modal parameters are calculated. Then the dynamic response of rotating disc which is excited and observed at spatial fixed positions is studied. The frequency response function is derived through space and time transformations. The equivalent modal parameter is extracted and expressed as the function of rotation speed and original stationary status modal parameters.

Abstract This Study describes about the development of new concept' rear wheel guards for the reduction of Road Noise in the passenger vehicles. The new wheel guards are proposed by various frequency chamber concept and different textile layers concept. Two wheel guards were verified by small cabin resonance and vehicle tests. Through new developing process without vehicle test, Result of road noise will be expected if this concepts and materials of wheel guard are applied into automotive vehicle. As this concept consider tire radiation noise frequency and multilayers sound control multilayers, 2 concepts reduced road noise from 0.5 to 1.0dB. The proposed method of part reverberant absorption is similar to results of vehicle tests by part absorption index. Furthermore, optimization of frequency band in wheel guards will reduce more 0.5 dB noises.

Abstract A method of predictive simulation of flow-induced noise using computational fluid dynamics has been developed. The goal for the developed method was application in the vehicle development process, and the target of the research was therefore set as balancing the realization of a practical level of predictive accuracy and a practical computation time. In order to simulate flow-induced noise, it is necessary to compute detailed eddy flows and changes in the density of the air. In the research discussed in this paper, the occurrence or non-occurrence of flow-induced noise was predicted by conducting unsteady compressible flow calculation using large eddy simulation, a type of turbulence model. The target flow-induced noise for prediction was narrow-band noise, a type of noise in which sound increases in specific frequency ranges.

Abstract Today, body vibration energy of passenger cars gets dissipated by linear working shock absorbers. A new approach substitutes the damper of a passenger car by a cardanic gimbaled flywheel mass. The constructive design leads to a rotary damper in which the vertical movement of the wheel carrier leads to revolution of the rotational axis of the flywheel. In this arrangement, the occurring precession moments are used to control damping moments and to store vibrational energy. Different damper characteristics are achieved by different induced precession. From almost zero torque output to high torque output, this damper has a huge spread. Next to the basic principal, in this paper an integration in the chassis, including a constructive proposal is shown. A conflict with high torque and high angular velocity leads to a special design. Moreover concepts to deal with all vehicle situations like yawing, rolling and pitching are shown.

Abstract Development of simulation technology for road noise while a vehicle is in operation has become an important issue. Because a fixed technological architecture has been established for simulation of the body and the suspension, the issue in realizing road noise simulation is how to accurately identify the force transmitted to the suspension through the tires and wheels by vibration input due to contact between the road surface and the tires. The issue here is that there are significant variations between static state characteristics, which are easy to measure, and vibration characteristics of tires in motion, which are challenging to measure. A variety of expertise regarding the sources of this discrepancy has been published. Among these, the effects of Coriolis and centrifugal forces resulting from the rolling motion are known.

Abstract Car manufacturers put large efforts into reducing wind noise to improve the comfort level of their cars. Each component of the vehicle is designed to meet its individual noise target to ensure the wind noise passenger comfort level inside the vehicle is met. Sunroof designs are tested to meet low-frequency buffeting (also known as boom) targets and broadband noise targets for the fully open sunroof with deflector and for the sunroof in vent position. Experimentally testing designs and making changes to meet these design targets typically involves high cost prototypes, expensive wind tunnel sessions, and potentially late design changes. To reduce the associated costs as well as development times, there is strong motivation for the use of a reliable numerical prediction capability early in the vehicle design process.

Abstract Wind noise, an aeroacoustic phenomenon, is an important attribute that influences customer sensation of interior quietness in a moving vehicle. As a vehicle travels faster, occupants' sensation of wind noise becomes increasingly objectionable. The purpose of this work is to investigate the increase of wind noise level perceived by a driver in response to an increase in wind speed. Specifically, it explores how much the level of wind noise at the DOE (driver outboard ear) would vary in response to a change in wind speed based on the test data obtained in a wind tunnel from ten vehicles that belong to several different passenger vehicle segments. The first part of this work studies the change of the SPL (sound pressure level) in response to a change in wind speed U. It shows that the SPL(dBA) approximately scales to U5.7 at the DOE and to U6.3 in the far-field, which could be interpreted as the dominance of dipoles.

Abstract Nowadays, studying the human body response in a seated position has attracted a lot of attention as environmental vibrations are transferred to the human body through floor and seat. This research has constructed a multi-body biodynamic human model with 17 degrees of freedom (DOF), including the backrest support and the interaction between feet and ground. Three types of human biodynamic models are taken into consideration: the first model doesn't include the interaction between the feet and floor, the second considers the feet and floor interaction by using a high stiffness spring, the third one includes the interaction by using a soft spring. Based on the whole vehicle model, the excitation to human body through feet and back can be obtained by ride simulation. The simulation results indicate that the interaction between feet and ground exerts non-negligible effect upon the performance of the whole body vibration by comparing the three cases.

Abstract A ball screw regenerative shock absorber was designed for the relief of the vehicle vibration and the energy recovery of the vehicle vibration. The effect of its main parameters on the suspension system was numerically analyzed. According to the principle of the ball screw regenerative suspension system, a mathematical model of the ball screw regenerative shock absorber was established regarding the ball screw rotational inertia, the motor rotational inertia, the screw lead and the radius of the screw nut. A suspension dynamic model based on the ball screw regenerative shock absorber was developed combining the road model and the two-degrees-of-freedom suspension dynamic model.

Mitsubishi Electric has developed a concept car “EMIRAI 2 xEV” that features an electric vehicle (EV) powertrain for safe, comfortable, and eco-friendly driving experiences in the future. The body of vehicle was exhibited during Tokyo Motor Show 2013 for the first time. xEV is a four-wheel-drive EV that has three motors: a water-cooled front motor and two air-cooled rear motors with integrated inverters. Rear wheels can be driven independently. The degrees of freedom of the actuation can realize improved maneuverability and safety. The vehicle is also equipped with an onboard charger with built-in step down DC/DC converter, an EV control unit, a battery management unit, and an electric power steering. All of the instruments are developed in Mitsubishi Electric Corporation. Motion control systems for xEV have been developed on the basis of our proprietary original motor control technology.

Abstract Analysis of noise level from engines is important from point of view of customer satisfaction. Accurate prediction of noise is important for planning, design and target setting decisions for meeting customer satisfaction goals. In this work an analytic model has been described to break diesel engine noise data into various components in order to plan a strategy for condition monitoring of engine.

Abstract Wiper noise generated in the wiping process is one of the main influence factors affecting the driving comfort. Since the dynamic contact pressure of the contact between a blade and a windshield glass is difficult to be measured, it is also difficult to predict the degree of the wiper noise. In this paper, in the view of the reversal noise problem of a passenger-vehicle windscreen wiper system, the system dynamic models of the both wipers on the sides of the driver and copilot were built as considering the blade deformation and the elastic contact between the blades and the windscreen glass, including the crank pivot, the four linkage mechanism, the wiper blades, the wiper arms and the windscreen glass. The motion of the wiper system and the pressure distributions between the blades and the windscreen glass were analyzed under the half-dry condition.

Abstract With the increasing of people's demand for comfort of vehicles, the noise generated by the reverse of windshield wiper causes wide attention. In this paper, as the front windshield wiper of one car is considered, the impacts of the preload of wiper lever spring, the torsional stiffness of blade neck and the flexible connection between the wiper arm and the wiper lever on the vibration excitation applied to the front windshield are analyzed based on the multi-body dynamic model of wiper system. The dynamic model includes the crank pivot, the four linkage mechanism, the wiper blades, the wiper arms and the windscreen glass which has been established considering with elastic contact between the wiper blade and the front windshield. Based on the analysis results the dimensions of cross-section of the wiper blade rubber and the flexible connection between the wiper arm and the wiper lever are designed to reduce the quick-return impact of wiper lever.

In the area of electronics enclosures, traditional metal structures conduct and spread heat over large surfaces, but composites act as insulation. Heat generated by components causes internal temperatures to rise and has detrimental impact on the performance and reliability of the electronics.